37 posts from 2009

alison is saying and doing so much these days, she's definitely become a toddler. i would say she knows about 30 words with more every day. she learned a bunch of animal sounds (i.e.... what does a sheep say?  bbbaaaaaa).  she points out all your facial features and says what they are.  she does the hand motions to songs when she hears them or wants you to sing them for her.  we are amazed each day at how much she learns. 

on alison's 17 month birthday, she got a sister. 

i guess inevitably parents will just compare their first-born to the next baby, etc. and although alison and natalie are so different in almost every way, there are some odd similarities.

similarities of birth and labor:

• born on the 3rd of the month
• born at 59 minutes past the hour
• born on a thursday
• born 4 days late
• born after 8-9 hour labor
• born after 10-15 minutes of pushing
• i gained 27 lbs with each pregnancy
• born late at night
  

labor was easier this time, pushing was way harder (RING OF FIRE!!!)

here is my (detailed) birth story:

i woke up on wednesday morning (3 days past due date) around 4:45am to pee and saw my bloody show.  i told hubby who immediately did a google search and said labor is either going to start "in a few hours or a few weeks."  great.  i had a doctor's appointment later that morning so i figure i'll see what the ob has to say and whether she could strip my membranes to get the process going.  so i go to my ob appointment and was disappointed to hear that i was still 2cm (had been for 3 weeks) but there were no membranes to strip so i was "close."  so she said to schedule an induction since i was post-date.  i wanted to wait until i was 1 week overdue to which the ob was like "you don't want to schedule it for tomorrow."  kind of freaky since i feel it's like knowing the date that you are going to die, but obviously not as morbid.  she basically said that if i went in for an induction, i would have the baby by noon.  ok.

so i go home and talk to hubby about it and he says that we should schedule it after his final on the following monday (1 week, 1 day past due date).  we decide to go and get lunch in santa monica and mull over it a bit and by the time we get back, around 2pm, i felt what was probably my 1st real contraction.  i don't let myself think it's the real thing but around 4pm, i started timing them because they seemed to be coming regularly, but were very mild.  they were about 4-7 minutes apart lasting 1 minute.  so i call my sister and give her a heads up to watch alison. we wait until 6:30pm to put alison to bed then head on in to the hospital and the whole time i'm hoping that they don't send me home as i'm not fully convinced it's real. 

we get to the hospital around 7:30pm and my contractions have somewhat died down but the nurse who sets me up on the monitor tells us that she hopes for the best and gets me into a gown before i get strapped to the monitors.  of course, no contractions are being picked up (turns out later, it was because of the baby's position).  an internal check was done and i was 6cm!  yay!  i'm admitted and transferred to a labor & delivery room.

i answer tons of questions about my health and get my IV set.  it took 3 tries to get the iv set.  the nurse was basically this chatty & absent-minded lady who stayed in the room the entire time from check in to delivery.  so i was talking to her the whole time and hubby just wanted to nap before he was really needed.  i'm getting really nervous since i had memories of the pain during the last 15 minutes of my last labor.  every nurse who walks in was basically like "just wait until your water breaks" because i was still feeling really comfortable and not in pain.   so a couple hours pass by answering questions and chatting about nothing and i decide that i want to go into the hot tub.  so the nurse checks me and i'm still 6cm.  disappointed, i head into the hot tub and spend a much needed hour to myself (around 10:30pm).  but during that hour i start freaking out about the memories of my previous labor's last 15 minutes and convinced that my labor progress had stalled, i get out and tell dean i need to get the epidural.  so the nurse comes in a checks me, and i'm 9cm!  so i hold off on getting the epi since i still feel the same as i did at 6cm.

just after midnight, the on-call doctor arrives at the hospital and breaks my water... i was expecting the next contraction to be bad, but it wasn't.  several more contractions like this and i felt the urge the push so they let me push for how long and in any position i was comfortable.  but the ob told me that i still had a bit of cervix left keeping the baby in so she had to hold it down for me when i pushed.  pushing was so painful.  this time, i felt the "ring of fire" and i almost wanted to quit pushing when i felt the burning.  i fought what felt so unnatural and continued pushing through the pain.  after 15 minutes of total pushing, baby natalie was out.

apgars were 9 & 9 and she was nearly 1.5 lbs heavier than alison.  i had a 2nd degree tear (boo!) and breastfeeding is a breeze since i just quit 8 months prior.

crazy... my sister went into labor the next day and had a baby boy 2 days after natalie was born.  these cousins will grow up together and it's cute how much they look alike. 

meet natalie:

i finally took alison to the ped for a well-baby visit after an 8+ month hiatus.  according to the doctor, she's one of the most consistent babies he's seen in terms of growth... every percentile has been pretty much the same since she was 2 weeks old.  her eczema still looks pretty bad on her legs, but i just can't keep on putting steroids on it so i'm just waiting for her to grow out of it.  she cried before she even got her vaccinations this time... she just looked at the tray of shots and remembered what they were. 

15 month stats
weight: 21lbs 10oz.... still 25th percentile
height: 31.5".... still 75th percentile
head circumference: i forgot, but still right around 50th percentile

alison's saying so much now, it's crazy.  a lot of it is only things that me or hubby can understand, but still it seems like every day she says something and it makes me think whether she meant it.  i get when parents say it just keeps on getting more fun... when does it start getting less fun?

words this month: shirt, bird, keys, cheese = camera, ai-eppu-dah ("pretty" in korean), duck, down, up, fish, cat, hi, bunny, uh-oh, bbo-bbo, "mama" for food, socks, how are you, shake (as in getting the dogs to shake her hand).  she also understands most things we tell her.  she tries to wipe for me (pee) when i'm going to the bathroom.  she even grabs the toilet paper and she also tries to flush the toilet afterward.  she still call me "daddy" even though she knows me as mommy.

developments this month: 8 new teeth come in this month... crazy!  she's gotten even more clingy in public and more scared of new sights and sounds. she also started doing this thing where when we say "night-night time" or "diaper change time" she hauls ass in the other direction.  daylights savings transition was a lot easier than i thought.  she had a nightmare the night of daylight savings (due to a nice fire show at hibachi dinner) and so we played with her for like an hour around 1am.  so when she finally woke up, it was 8am new time, 9am old time. awesome.  too bad i'm still stuck on the old time and i wake up before 6 every morning. 

i'm 36 weeks and 3 days pregnant now.  baby is head down measuring 6lbs10oz.  i'm having loads of contractions in the past few days, but nothing that gets stronger.  i freaked out a bit yesterday and finally got out the carseat and washed it.  i also washed a bunch of clothes and started re-organizing and re-arranging alison's room to make room for another baby + crib.  something a bit TMI that i'm battling is varicose veins.  while these veins are not TMI in and of themselves, they are when they appear in your hoohah and then you start freaking out that you have some sort of STD and spend hours googling images trying to self-diagnose yourself before you ask the obgyn to take a look.  apparently it's really common with 2nd pregnancies and the only way to get them to disappear is to have the baby. 

we hired a new helper who is a korean older lady who will help me cook, clean, and take care of babies.  i hope i don't wear her out 'cause i really need the help w/o hubby helping me this time.  this new baby will be born right around school finals time so it's bad timing.  we also have our first family vacation as a 4-some planned for sometime in the beginning of january to go snowboarding/skiing.... yay!!! 

we had our first real choking incident today and called 911.  alison ate something, later we found out it was a piece of candy the size of a quarter.  i was laying on the bed and she came over to me and pulled me and i saw that she was gagging.  i whacked her on the back, held her upside down, stuck my finger down her throat and it wasn't coming out.  i yelled for hubby, who was thankfully home, and he did the same whacking then yelled at me to call 911.  she just kept gagging and then white curdled stuff tinged with blood started coming out of her nose but she was still gagging.  he ran with her outside so that he could meet the parademics but just when they arrived she threw up the candy in the courtyard.  this all took 7 minutes. 

i'm still shaking.  it's been 4 hours since the incident.  time to babyproof.  and we always comment how she never puts anything in her mouth.  the candy was on the kitchen table.  i don't even want to think about other outcomes.  i'm going to take a baby CPR class now... who wants to take one with me?  today i learned that the heimlich maneuver or sticking your finger down a babies throat is a big no-no, oh that and leaving candy out while trying to sneak in a little rest while baby plays.

alison is now 15 months old.

milestones this month:

• starting to say some real words and asks for what she wants rather that "eh eh" or "mmmMMM"
• new words this month:  shoes, book, juice, "ba" meaning bottle or cup, "boo" meaning ghost, "choo-choo" meaning train, and ball.
• says "night night" when she's tired or going to bed
  
• snaps her fingers to music or on command
• stomps her feet to music or on command
• talks/babbles to stuffed animals playing pretend
• works the tantrums when she doesn't get her way
• pretends to talk on the phone
• knows how to point out ears, eyes, nose, and mouth

one of my good friends delivered twin boys this week, each weighing 6.5 lbs and 19 in.  they were both head down and laying on the same side.  she got PUPPS in the last week and that was the only time she complained during the entire pregnancy. oh, and she's only 5'1".

she reminds me to not complain about being sick, tired, and sore.  i've gotta really enjoy this pregnancy - my last!!!

my sister and i went to panera yesterday because we're hungry and we both order a 1/2 Turkey Artichoke Hot Panini with soup and salad.

sis: i heard one of panera's sandwiches is on a "worst foods to eat" list  i wonder if this is it.

me: i don't want to know.

sis: (looks at the nutritional pamphlet)  OMG, this 1/2 sandwich has 1170 calories in it!!

both of us immediately deconstruct our sandwiches and frantically scrape off all the spread

me: lemme see the menu...
...
...??!!!!!!!!
damnit!!  that's the sodium content!  this sandwich only has like 350 calories.

very very sad that my dinner was ruined.

why do all restaurants have to list the calorie count now?  i'd much rather not know and just enjoy going out to eat. 

alison's 14 month birthday has come and gone and so much has happened.  she's a full time walker now.  her hands still have a slight gay hand cock going on with them but the hands are slowly migrating down.  she's learning a few words and hand signals: apple, up, moo, arf (dog sound), night night, and signing all done.  i think she knows how to say "cheese" too, but not 100% sure.  she tries to imitate everything we do and every sound we make.  when someone farts (NOT ME), she blows a raspberry, when someone yawns, she'll pretend to yawn too.  she plays itsy bitsy spider with her fingers, dances to music, and she also tries to get us to do everything for her.  yesterday husband fed her a few tastes of ice cream then after that, she would take the spoon, dig it into the ice cream, grab husband's hands and place it on the spoon.  i've changed her sleep schedule so that she sleeps in later and goes to bed later... so nice to sleep in and to go out to eat dinner without a meltdown.  her 2nd nap has gotten so long that i have to wake her up.

it's been really too hot in LA so we're getting a bit of cabin fever from trying to stay in air conditioning all the time.  we bought her a splash pool to play with that keeps her entertained for a while and out of the Tupperware and utensil drawers.

we tried going to the LA County Fair and i totally regretted it the second we got there.  it was so much hotter in pomona than in LA and with 2 pregnant women and a baby to deal with, it was really hot.  we were all so lethargic and sweaty plus we couldn't enjoy all the fried foods the fair had to offer.  but this one thing made the whole trip worth it:
this past weekend, we took a train trip up to san luis obispo.  much cooler up there.  alison hasn't worn anything long-sleeved in like half her life and she kept trying to pull her sleeves off of every outfit.  the trip was mostly for the experience of riding the 40 mph train.  it was actually nicer than i thought it would be.  our cabin was a family cabin that sleeps 5 and spans the width of the train.  we had a personal attendant and reservations for meals, which were included.  the meal car was on the 2nd floor and had panoramic views of the coast line and the vineyards.  and the food was surprisingly good... husband even took away alison's food claiming she was finished, but he ate it for himself.  one day, i want to take the train all the way up to seattle... it takes 2 days.  i think i have something about trains.

pictures added to the previous post

another long post combining what should've been a bunch of shorter ones, shall i call this a monthly update?  it's been a month!!!  if you can see by the date of this post, i had intended on posting before i left for china, but i never finished writing the post until much later (today is august 16).  to top it off, i can't find any of our USB cords for our cameras so i can't even upload and post pictures or videos.

pregnancy update

i gained 10 pounds last month!  ugh!  but i looked back at my weight gain last pregnancy and i had gained 9 lbs in the same month so hopefully i'm on the same weight gain pattern.  my appetite is voracious!  i cannot satiate myself.
and i'm having contractions like crazy.  one night (22 weeks), i was so tempted to go to labor and delivery because i think i had like 10 in an hour, but i was also thinking about the embarrassment factor that could ensue should my contractions magically stop once i'm hooked up to the monitor.  i just tried to drink water and sleep them off and the contractions calmed by the morning.  i am now 25 weeks-ish?  i keep forgetting i'm pregnant, it's just been too busy.

i know all the pregnant women out there might understand this but last time i had an anterior placenta (in the front) and i didn't feel movements until 18.5 weeks.  this time, i have a posterior placenta (in the back) and i felt movements starting 15 weeks.  but the movements are so much more pronounced this time.  it's like i can constant feel movements and sometimes i can even make out body parts, which i hadn't been able to do with alison until i was in my 3rd trimester.  gross, huh?

thursday date nights

husband and i have been allowed awesome thursday night date nights because we've hired a nanny/housekeeper once a week.  she comes and plays with alison for an hour, puts her to sleep then cleans for 2 hours.  she doesn't always finish (laundry, dishes, vacuum, pick up dog hair, etc.) but she comes every week, which is more frequent than any cleaning help that we've hired in the past.  i feel like weekly date night has helped us reconnect as a couple and relax.  we were getting such cabin fever from staying in all the time. 

china trip

i was so excited to be going to china and w/o baby! but i was so nervous about alison as we have never left her overnight anywhere without us.  i'm totally fine with the separation part of it but i'm scared that something will happen to her. before we left, i dreamed my MIL forgot to install alison's carseat and told me she was just going to drive around while alison sat in a big wicker basket.  strangely, it sounds like something she would do.  she thinks 6-year-olds can baby sit alison and i keep on telling her that she needs to watch alison because that 6-year-old has dropped my 20 lbs. baby before.  i was so nervous about leaving alison, that i rented an international cell phone and when i told husband, i got a long lecture about how we're on vacation and we need to cut ourselves off from our daily lives and alison is not going to die and if something happens to anyone, they'll get a hold of us yadadadaa.... so there is my botched cell phone attempt.  basically, we're calling no-one and no-one should be calling us.

overall, china was one HOT SWEATY trip.  i don't think husband ever stopped sweating.  he had to pay to get his laundry done and it cost us close to $100.  had i had known 1 million chinese people were also on vacation and wanted to tour the major landmarks of china, i might have chosen to go to greece instead.  however, i'm glad we went because china is one place i felt like i should go to at least once in my life and it's not travel-friendly for the retired folks or families with young kids. first of all, i'd like to get my complaining out of the way then write about what i enjoyed.
 
complaints:

• chinese people don't understand the concept of a line. i had to pee so bad one time i was standing in the middle of a 4-stall bathroom and 3 people cut in front of me.  you literally have to be the 1st to touch the door that opens to get that stall.
• when people say china is overpopulated, they aren't kidding!  on top of that, it was so hot and every sun-hating asian had an umbrella.  so try navigating through doorways and structures with a million asians with their umbrellas with no concept of a line and you can see how hard it was to see a landmark.

 

• no one speaks a word of english unless they are a tour guide or work in a hotel.  i know i'm ignorant when i assume most people can understand basic english, but we literally had to point out where we wanted to go on the map to each taxi driver.  one taxi driver couldn't understand "westin hotel" and another couldn't understand "airport."  it's funny, when each taxi driver realized we were not chinese speakers, they would yell stuff and be very obvious in their frustration.  then they would talk louder as if we could magically understand chinese if we just heard it being yelled to us instead.  luckily we still got everywhere we needed through hand signals and our map.
  

enjoyed (no real surprises here):

• food.  i was pleasantly surprised at how delicious the food was.  we asked some of our private tour guides where they like to eat and we were able to taste authentic chinese food.  2 of our tour guides each to us to restaurants that were so local, they had to order for us. some of the touristy food places that we enjoyed were soup dumplings in shanghai in yu yuan gardens, peking duck in beijing at da dong duck restaurant, and some totally tourist-only stop in xi'an right near the terracota warriors where they had the best noodles that simply tasted like cooked wonton wrappers stir-fried in oil with a little bit of salt.  so simple, yet so tasty.
  

 

• forbidden city.  i never thought it was so big!  when our guide was telling us there was an outer court and and inner court.  we kept on walking around and at one point i was for sure we were in the inner court, but we were still in the outer court.  it was so fascinating to imagine ceremonies and traditions that occurred inside the forbidden city.

• beijing hotel.  we stayed at the opposite house, a boutique hotel in beijing and the customer service was top notch.  like they bent over backwards for us, arranging drivers, reservations, providing us with water, free laptop use, free minibar, and allowing us a 6pm late checkout.

• train travel.  even though we could've flown from city to city, i wanted to take the train for the "experience."  although husband could talk about how crazy i was for making him take overnight trains rather than fly an hour from city to city, he just doesn't appreciate the experience.  on one train, we had a private room with it's own bathroom and we each slept a nice 10 hours and the bedding was nice, not westin heavenly bed nice, but very comfy.  and although husband won't admit it, he had one of his best meals on the train... a $0.60 breakfast of rice porridge and 4 cold side dishes of marinated bean sprouts, seaweed with tofu, some pickled brown root, and marinated cucumbers with carrots.  he went searching for it our first morning back in los angeles.    

4-berth train cabin

you know, it seems like there are no pregnant women in china?  i know there is a 1 child policy there but i would think with 18+ million people or so in beijing and shanghai each, i thought i would have seen several.  i saw 2 the whole week we were in china.  i was so paranoid that maybe pregnant woman aren't allowed outside the house then i got worried so i never left the hotel by myself.  they also potty train babies really young there, like around 1.  most babies wear pants with slits from front to back and their parents just squat them on the side of the street to pee/poo.  it got me thinking that maybe i could potty train alison before baby #2 arrives.  babies are also really fascinating to everyone.  we would see all these people posing and taking pictures with other people's babies.

once we got back to L.A., alison didn't recognize me!  she cried every time i held her.  she only recognized husband when he said his secret phrase to her, then she was all smiles.  damnit!  why didn't i think of having a secret phrase with her?  i just thought it was so juvenile at the time, but i guess she is a baby.  the next morning, she was back to knowing me but she just became really whiny because she was so spoiled while we were gone.  my parents and husband's parents each told me she might have drank 2 oz of formula every day at most and the rest was adult food.  she came back fat so she must've eaten a lot.  i heard a partial list of what my mother fed her and i'm just glad that alison is fine (crab, cupcakes, chocolate, nuts, you name every forbidden food plus some healthy ones). i'll have to work on de-spoiling her now.  good thing is she slept well and gave no-one nap or nighttime troubles. 

i also missed her learning to walk!  =(  she learned how to walk while we were gone.  i knew there was a big possibility we would miss this milestone since she had taken a few steps here and there on her own before we left.  but now she can walk like 10-20 steps on her own although she would still prefer to hold on to our finger.  she is always is pulling our fingers to go outside and take a walk and she gets so mad when we don't oblige.

13 month milestones overdue by a couple weeks

(taken by the cardiologist)
weight    21 lbs even (35th percentile)
height    30 inches even (60th percentile)

• this first month i felt like she understood what i was saying to her.  examples: i ask her to say bye to daddy and she turns around, looks at her dad, then waves bye.  another time, i told her to get elmo and she went and got him off the carpet (i was trying to clean up and too lazy to pick elmo up).  
• she plays fetch with the dogs, although it's more like she picks the object up and drops it a couple inches in front of her.  the dog is a good sport and still plays.
  
• when i say "i love you," she mumbles something that resembles i love you then comes and gives me hugs. 
  
• walks a few steps here and there.  she's now walking more, but it was after the 13 month birthday so it'll have to fall into the 14 month milestones.
  
• says mommy and daddy for real, although she said daddy first =(  i don't know why she likes him so much.
  
• says "doggie" when she sees a dog and she points to every one.  it's so funny, i'll be out strolling her on the streets of L.A. and even though i can't see her face, i can see her finger constantly pointing out from under the sunshade and hear her calling out "doggie"

baby girl #2 is completely healthy!  no extra chromosomes!  and another piece of good news.  as of last year, california pays for all genetic counseling and testing once someone qualifies.  so i didn't even have to use my crappy insurance for the detailed ultrasound and amniocentesis.. it was paid for by the state.  i guess california is trying to budget how much social work needs to be done after baby arrives?  that's my guess.

warning: long and picture heavy post

thanks to everyone who helped out and came out to celebrate alison's 1st birthday!  i have to admit i'm glad it's over because our apartment was becoming birthday party central.  the night before the party, i heard one of our dogs playing with the balloons and popping a few but overall the preparations weren't nearly as stressful as i thought and i didn't have to sleep late since i had help from my sister and my husband.  i felt so busy during the event so i didn't really get to socialize much. we had 55 adults, 13 kids, and 8 babies show up!  more people than i expected considering it was a holiday weekend and a friday.  since husband and i paid for this party ourselves, i tried to save money where it didn't count.

CENTERPIECES
the day before the party, i went to the L.A. Flower Mart and bought 10 bunches of 25 purple cezanne roses for centerpieces and round glass vases to go along.  the 1st centerpiece took me an hour to strip the leaves and thorns, cut the stems, and arrange but after the 1st one, i was able to finish the remaining 9 centerpieces in 3 hours.  total price for 10 centerpieces = $150!!  savings of $850 rather than buying centerpieces. 

VIDEO
i made a video slideshow using animoto (animoto.com) and my own videos.  using animoto was awesome because all i had to do was upload the pictures and the program animates the photos to music and renders it for you.  i paid $5 for the DVD quality AVI video download... bargain!  i used our own video editing software to add in the small captions and splice in our home videos. the song is "all mine" by sarah vondehaar.

DOL TABLE
the fake rice cake towers are made of colored m&m's.  total cost of the styrofoam and M&M's = $75.  the korean letters say "1st birthday" and "alison."  the 4'x6' banner was designed by my sister's friend and i printed it out at kinko's for $160.  my husband blew up 75 balloons the day before and we tied them together to make flowers but if you can see, we only ended up using like 12 balloons.  but over hiring balloon people, i think we saved several hundred $. 

CAKE
donated by my cousin who is a professional wedding cake designer. top layer is chocolate and served as the smash cake.  alison needed a little help with the smash. cost = $0
KOREAN TRADITIONS
here is alison in a hanbok.  she hated changing clothes but once the hanbok was on, she didn't let it stop her from crawling to grab her fortune which was string = long life. it was both cute and funny to see her try to crawl with the hanbok on.
ENTERTAINMENT
we hired a face painter and balloon twister to keep the kids occupied.  they were awesome!  the company was called party face magic.

THE LOOT
we received a lot of much needed clothes!  she even got her first true religion jeans.  we received a ton of new toys too, she's going to be busy.

12 MONTH MILESTONES!

• said "mama" on her 1st birthday... i love it!
  
• clicks her tongue
• has 8 teeth (4 on top and 4 on bottom)
  
• first hospitalization =(  for kawasaki disease but she's healthier now
• drinks through a straw